ValueOps and OKRs: Enabling a Non-Profit Organization to Track and Realize Value

ValueOps and OKRs: Enabling a Non-Profit Organization to Track and Realize Value 

Step Up For Students is a non-profit organization that provides scholarships to students from low-income families, students with unique abilities, students who have experienced bullying, and students who have literacy challenges. With over 250,000 student scholarships served in 2022-2023, their IT (Information Technology) department was facing challenges managing projects and programs in a more efficient and sustainable way. In order to better manage their operations, Step Up For Students partnered with Winmill PPM (Project and Portfolio Management) and Broadcom to implement Clarity, a value stream management application, and an OKR (Objectives and Key Results) solution. 

The Problem 

As the organization grew, the IT department at Step Up For Students found that their existing tools, such as Microsoft Project and Excel, were no longer sufficient for managing their projects and programs. The process of gathering data and communicating it in a meaningful way took a lot of manual effort. Resource management was also a challenge. Step Up for Students knew there had to be a better way to achieve their goals. In addition to improving efficiency, they wanted to enable the organization to map the work they are doing to the organization’s Objectives and measure progress using Key Results. 

Why ValueOps 

Step Up For Students evaluated several project and portfolio management and value stream management applications. They found that most had some form of project, portfolio, and resource management capabilities but lacked a native way to manage Objective and Key Results (OKRs). They needed a product with the flexibility to add this capability, and it needed to be delivered in a Low Code/No Code manner. When speaking with Winmill PPM about Broadcom’s ValueOps solutions, Clarity checked nearly every box on their wish list, except a native OKR solution. 

Winmill PPM’s OKR Solution 

Step Up For Students selected Winmill PPM’s QuickStart Implementation package to implement Clarity. This included the implementation of Project Management, which included financial management, status reporting, and risk management, along with Resource Management, Road mapping, Hierarchies, and more. When it came time to implement OKRs, there was not an Out-of-the-Box module, so Winmill PPM partnered with Broadcom to implement a solution. 

Broadcom developed an OKR solution within their ValueOps products that could be implemented, but it was not exactly what Step Up For Students needed. The OKR solution was tweaked, incorporating Imperatives into the Objectives and Key Results framework, allowing Step Up For Students to track and measure results in a meaningful way for their leadership and manageable for their project managers. The solution also enabled Step Up for Students to manage risks at the project, Objective and Key Result level as well as roll up the financial information, allowing them to analyze cost by defined Imperatives. 

The Results 

Step Up For Students now has the ability to manage their projects and build meaningful roadmaps to ensure that they are investing their precious time and money into the work that delivers the most value, not just to their organization but also to the students they support. Every project is evaluated against the organization’s strategy.  Projects can be tied to Key Results and then roll-up to an Objective and an Imperative established by their leadership to ensure that their work is directly tied to the organization’s goals.. 

The solution enables Leadership to quickly see how projects deliver value to the organization. The metrics tied to their OKRs easily show the progress they are making. A series of reports were built that will allow Step Up For Students to measure processes, track outcomes, assess risks, and remediate issues. All this information is available with the click of a button. Therefore, the solution removes the need to track down managers to get up-to-date information enabling time to be spent delivering value, not compiling reports

Craig Gonsalves, Vice President, Enterprise PMO (project management offices) for Step Up for Students commented, “Winmill PPM has been the conduit to our digital transformation success in this space. Their approach, patience, and expertise have shined as they expertly guided us through our launch. Their cautious approach and thoughtful design of the system provide a testament to the professionalism, experience, and work they do. I am so glad they are our partners.” 

Check out more in our SUFS White Paper!

Find out how your organization can achieve ValueOps and establish OKRs by contacting us today at PPMInfo@winmill.com!